of Ireland. Let us know these alternatives. The more they are examined the better I believe it will be for us all. It will become reasonably clear-I won't say to demonstration-that we have before us a great opportunity of putting an end to the controversy of 700 years-ay, and of knitting together, by bonds firmer and higher in their character than those which heretofore we have mainly used, the hearts and affections of this people and the noble fabric of the British Empire. HOME RULE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 7, 1886 R. SPEAKER-I shall venture to make, sir, a few remarks on the speech of the right honorable MR gentleman,' but I will first allow myself the satisfaction of expressing what I believe to be a very widespread sentiment, and saying with what pleasure I listened to two speeches this evening-the singularly eloquent speech of the senior member for Newcastle and the masterly exposition-for I cannot call it less-of the honorable member for Cork. Sir, I feel a strong conviction that speeches couched in that tone, marked alike by sound statesmanship and farseeing moderation, will never fail to produce a lasting effect upon the minds and convictions of the people of England and Scotland. Sir, with respect to the personal question which has arisen between the honorable member for Cork and the right honorable gen. tleman opposite, I think it no part of my duty to interfere. I have avoided, and I shall avoid, in the discussion of this 1 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, in the course of whose speech Mr. Parnell had referred to his communication with Lord Carnarvon question, so far as I can, all matters which are of a purely polemical character between party and party. I presume that this subject will be carried further. I understand a distinct allegation to be made by the honorable member for Cork with regard to some person, whose name he does not give, but who is one of a limited body. In that limited body it will not be difficult, I conclude, to procure it if it can be given. Upon that I pass no judgment. I simply make this comment upon a subject which is of considerable public interest. The right honorable gentleman opposite will do me the justice to say that I have not sought, before taking office or since taking it, to make the conduct which right honorable gentlemen opposite pursued on their accession to power, matter of reproach against them. If they do not like to do me that justice I shall not ask it. On the speech of the right honorable gentleman I need not dwell at great length. He began by stating a series of what he succinctly described as simple facts. I will not say his simple facts are pure fictions, because that would hardly, perhaps, be courteous. But they are as devoid of foundation as if they had been pure fiction. The right honorable gentleman declared--though I do not see that it has much to do with the matter that this is the bill of one man. Well, I am amazed that the right honorable gentleman speaks as if he had been at my elbow all day and every day through the autumn and winter of last year. How can any man know that this is the bill of one man? (A laugh.) How can the honorable member who laughs know that this is the bill of one man? Reference is made to the allegations of my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham. My right honorable friend could only speak within the compass of his knowledge, and if he said that it was the bill of one man he would know no more about it than the honorable member opposite. What my right honorable friend said, and said truly, was to state the time at which the bill came before the Cabinet. But, sir, long before that time the subject of the bill and its leading details had been matter of anxious consideration between me and my nearest political friends. (Cries of "Name!") I never heard a more extraordinary demand in my life, not to say gross impropriety. I refer to those of my colleagues who were most likely to give the most valuable aid, and with whom from the first I was in communication. Then, sir, the right honorable gentleman says we were installed in office by the help of the honorable member for Cork. The right honorable gentleman appears to have forgotten the elementary lessons of arithmetic. It is perfectly true that the energetic assistance of the honor. able member for Cork might have kept the right honorable gentleman in office. The right honorable gentleman speaks of the party behind him and the Liberal party, as it then was on this side of the House, as if they had been two equal parties, and only required the honorable member for Cork and his friends to turn the scale. (Lord Randolph Churchill: "They were.") They were, says the noble lord! The noble lord's arithmetic is still more defective-335 is by 85 votes a larger party than 250. Then the right honorable gentleman says that, with the exception of the customs and excise duties, no change was made in the bill after it was first submitted to the Cabinet. He has no means of knowing that, even if it were true, but it happens to be entirely untrue. Provisions of great importance had never been seen by my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham. My right honorable friend took ex ception to certain provisions of the bill without being acquainted with the whole corpus of the bill. That is the fact; so that the right honorable gentleman is entirely wrong also upon this as well as upon his other "simple facts." Then the right honorable gentleman says that I had announced that this bill was not to be reconstructed. I announced that I did not promise that it should be reconstructed. (A laugh.) There are actually gentlemen opposite-members of Parliament chosen to represent the coun. try-who think this a matter of laughter, and can see no distinction between promises that a bill shall not be reconstructed, and not having promised that it shall be. I conceive that a person who has promised that a bill shall be reconstructed is bound to reconstruct it. Is that true? A person who has not promised that a bill shall be reconstructed is free to reconstruct it, but is not bound to do so. I hope I have made a clear distinction; and I am glad to see that the laughter opposite has ceased as light has flowed in upon the minds of those honorable gentlemen. I was struck with another observation of the right honorable gentleman. He says that this bill, whatever else may happen, will at any rate be rejected by the votes of a majority of English and Scotch members-(Opposition cheers) -and he is cheered by those who teach us that they are, above all things, anxious for the maintenance of an absolutely united kingdom, and an absolutely united parlia ment, in which Irish members are in all respects to be assimilated to, and identical with, those representing English and Scotch constituencies. The right honorable gentleman talks about a dissolution, and I am glad to find that upon that point he and we are much more nearly associated in our views and expectations than upon almost any other point. After what the right honorable gentleman has said, and the want of acquaintance which he has shown with the history of this bill, on which he dwelt so long, and after what was said by my right honorable friend behind me [Mr. Goschen], I must again remind the House, at any rate, in the clearest terms I can use, of the exact position in which we stand wih reference to the bill. In the first place, I take it to be absolutely beyond dispute, on broad and high parliamentary grounds, that that which is voted upon to-night is the principle of the bill as distinguished from the particulars of the bill. What may be the prin ciple of the bill, I grant you freely I have no authority to determine. (A laugh.) The honorable member laughs; I am much obliged for his running commentary, which is not usual, on my observations, but it is our duty to give our own sense of the construction of the principle of the bill, and I think I drew a confirmation of that construction from the speech of the right honorable gentleman, because he himself said this was a bill for the purpose of establishing a legislative body in Ireland for the management of Irish affairs. Well, sir, that—if we have any power or any title to give our view on the subject—is the principle of the bill. As respects the principle of the bill, I apprehend it to be beyond all question that members voting for the principle of the bill are in this sense entirely and absolutely free-that if they consider that there is another set of provisions by means of which better and fuller effect may be given to the principle of the bill, they are at liberty to displace all the particulars they find in it which hinder that better and fuller effect being given to the principle. (A laugh.) That does not admit of doubt. I am quite certain the honorable member who laughs will not rise in |